Relearning Watercolor: Juni and Ginger Guy

After nearly a decade away from watercolor, I should have painted a pear or apple to practice. Instead I chose a difficult subject: little Juni, after a swim, with the cool, aqua colors of the pool and the reds of her beach towel reflected in her face (the latter overemphasized and unable to be lightened in my painting unfortunately).

I tried four times to draw and paint her and I may try this one again when I feel more competent.

After I gave up on painting Juni, I tried painting this ginger-haired guy from a photo (below) from an online drawing demo. I found it a little easier to draw and paint him, since I don’t know him. It’s both exciting and frustrating to be relearning watercolor.

Below are the sketches and reference photo. As you can see, my first sketch was missing a huge chunk of the back of his head, a common rookie error. To check my drawing I layered a tracing of the photo over my sketch in Procreate. When I saw how far off I was, I started over with a second drawing that was more accurate.